'That's not us': City hit six but Alexander lays down law in Halifax friendly

GRAHAM Alexander was unhappy with a 20-minute spell in City’s 6-1 thrashing of Halifax. The Bantams eased to victory at their National League neighbours earlier today in the second pre-season friendly. But boss Alexander laid down the law during a second-half water break. City had again switched the entire team at the interval after going in 4-1 up after a dominant start. He was not impressed with how the changed line-up responded – until the mid-half pep talk got them going. Alexander said: “It was an improvement from last week, a bit sharper, a bit more aggressive, a bit quicker in our play and we obviously scored some good goals. “But I thought the first 15-20 minutes of the second half was poor. We were slow. “We said to the players in that little break, we're playing like we've taken the score line from the first half into the second game. “It’s two separate games. This is a training session, we want to be good, we want to be sharp, we want to be aggressive. “We have to have that where we're always going forward, we're always being aggressive, we're always putting the opposition under pressure and we just took the easy option too many times and we didn't get close enough to them. “But this is what pre-season is for, it's for those little spells that we can correct. “That's not us, we're better when we're flat out, when we're in people's faces, when we turn the ball over. “If we have an opportunity to pass through lines, pass forward, have a shot, have a cross, we take it. We don't just go with the safe option, so it was about that. “You could see the second part of the second half was much better and we didn't have to defend much. It's twofold on the way we play, it helps us defend and be hard to beat, but it also creates chances for us. “It was good that the players understand that, then they can go and put it into action and respond. We’re not asking them anything we know they can't do, it's just about directing the focus and the mind. “It was a good lesson for some of the players, certainly in the second half.” City raced into a three-goal lead in the opening 11 minutes through Will Swan, who grabbed a second just before half-time, Kayden Jackson and Nick Powell. Harry Ibbitson and Bobby Pointon then netted after the lecture from Alexander. “I thought the way we went about it first half was really good,” he added. “We haven't really touched on the in-possession stuff yet. We've just tried to get our pressing game, our out-of-possession stuff nailed down. “One week isn't enough. You need a game at the end of it and then correct some things and work towards the next game and we’ve done that. “But it's been good to score the goals we have before we've really started nailing down things. “I think we've got a really potent front line with the players we have in the squad. I think they can score more goals than we have done previously. “But you've got to understand the source of that a lot of the time is how aggressive we are, how we turn the ball over in high areas.”